(Disclaimer: Here at Pinoylife, we may be a bit L.A.-biased when it comes to pro sports teams, so I’m afraid you’re gonna have to deal with it.)

I got a chance to ditch work on Monday and go to Dodger Stadium to see the Dodgers home opener vs. the hated Frisco Giants. I know a lot of Frisco fans have cum in their pants (pun intended) lately due to a certain half-Pinoy pitcher, but us Dodger fans have our perks too. For Opening Day the sellout record crowd of 57,099 were treated to none other than 16-year old singing sensation (wait, wasn’t she the 15-year old singing sensation last year?) Charice Pempengco, singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” as the big-ass American flag was unfurled.

There was also an international theme as flags of 30 nations (including the Philippine flag) of which the Dodgers have had some relationship with were carried into the infield.

Missed it? My infamous video camera caught the performance!

Okay yeah, she’s not even a U.S. citizen, but you gotta admit, she can rock the anthem better than most citizens could. Speaking of which, she’s spent an awful lot of time here in the States lately. And one of the songs played before the game was AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” Coincidence?

After her performance, a B2-stealth bomber flew overhead, hundreds of doves were released, Vin Scully threw out the ceremonial first pitch to open up a game which had Dodger outfielder Andrew Either hit two homeruns, pitcher Chad Billingsley throw 11 strikeouts, and new infielder Orlando Hudson hit for the cycle with a homerun, a single, a double and a triple all in the same game – a rare feat not accomplished since 1970!

Oh yeah, the Dodgers won 11-1. Sorry Frisco fans. Tsk, tsk.

At this rate, we should have Charice sing the national anthem every day.

The promotional juggernaut of HBO’s Pacquiao – Hatton 24/7 has begun and I am officially excited for the upcoming fight. Episode one of the four part series aired on Saturday, April 11. As always, HBO’s sports documentary team did an excellent job telling the stories of Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton as they prepare for their big fight on May 2 in Las Vegas.

One of Rex Navarrete’s funniest comic bits is when he describes his uncle watching Animal Planet and pointing out the fact that the he claimed to have eaten all the animals shown on TV. Recently, life immitated Rex’s art off the Burias island in central Philippines when a few of our kababayan fishermen accidentally caught a rare megamouth shark… and ate it!

The megamouth shark, Megachasma pelagios, is an extremely rare and unusual species of deepwater shark. Discovered in 1976, only a few have ever been seen, with 41 specimens known to have been caught or sighted as of 2009 and three recordings on film.

Yes folks, our fisherman accidentally stumbled upon one of the rarest animals on the planet and instead of seizing the opportunity to advance our understanding of this creature, they decided to make supersized pulutan. That’s 1,100 pounds of a potentially endangered species served up deep fried with rice, tomatoes, salted egg and San Miguel beer.

I wasn’t there but I can only speculate some of the rationale behind eating the 41st encountered specimen of this shark.

I got this from Pinoylifer Lorely Trinidad. Please check out the event on Wednesday night!

Dear Friends,

A lot of you may or may not know in the past decade I have spent a considerable amount of time in the Philippines immersing myself in the Art scene and working with non-profit organizations. In 2001, I volunteered for Museo Pambata teaching Theatre to current and former streetchildren and have been in love with them and this wonderful organization ever since. Between now and then, this group of kids have went on to perform at events throughout the country, taught Theatre to other kids, and some have went on to college with scholarships. Tears well up in my eyes as I type this

Museo Pambata’s Dr. Nin Lim-Yuson is visiting Los Angeles for a brief amount of time and I am helping her spread the word about Museo Pambata and its many programs. She is an incredible woman and role model who has done so many things to make the country of the Philippines a better place. And she is looking forward to meeting all of you

Museo Pambata, the Philippines’ premier children’s museum, is a place of hands-on discovery, a child’s window to the world, providing a view that stays honest and consistent amidst changing images and meanings.

After weeks of negotiations, I can finally let the cat out of the bag. PinoyLife.com has been purchased by FilAmNation.com.

Thank you for all of your support throughout the years and you can expect the same wit and content on our new home, FilAmNation.com. Now you all know what has been taking up all my time recently and why I haven’t been able to update the site as much.

This strategic move allows PinoyLife visitors to a wider variety of EXCELLENT web content that Filipino Americans can truly relate to. The transition to the new site will take place in the next few weeks. For awhile, you may check FilAmNation.com to get a preview of the greatness that is to come.

UPDATE

If you really thought I would sell PinoyLife to a clueless operation like FilAmNation.com, I got three words for ya…

College angst can be fun. Many Pinoys and Pinays go to college and all of a sudden feel the need to do a lot of catch up activism work for all the years they took their ethnicity for granted. This usually ends up with some folks overcompensating for years of their lack of Pinoy-ness only to result with being overly politically correct and thus becoming the quintessence of the phrase “buzz kill.” I speak from experience.

For most of us, it’s only a small phase and then when we are stuck with real life decisions like starting careers or dealing with reality, we wise up and realize that we were a little over sensitive on a few things.

One thing that the overly p.c. crowd really likes to jump on are stereotypes.

The L.A. Weekly just published an article about two Filipinas who were practically enslaved by other Filipinos that run a nursing facility. It’s a very good article that highlights a sad aspect of our community.

If you haven’t heard, we’re in a recession. Just making sure we got that piece of information out of the way.

This difficult economic time has resulted in the U.S. Government scrambling to take some form of immediate action to alleviate the current financial situation in America. The proposed solution that was signed by President Obama was a $787 billion (with a “B”) economic stimulus package. I don’t have the time nor energy to try to explain the rationale of every line item in this stimulus package but basically, the government is going to spend a sh*tload of money on a bunch of stuff in the hopes that the U.S. economy will improve.

The bill contains things like infrastructure construction projects, tax breaks and credits to incent more people to buy new vehicles, and many other things that are supposedly intended to have an immediate impact on decreasing unemployment and increasing consumer spending.

Then there are the other items in the stimulus package that have drawn the ire of its biggest critics. One of the controversial items in this bill is a proposed $400 million to be spent on anti-smoking and sexually transmitted disease prevention programs. I’m sure these are both great in promoting good health but the only possible result that I can see how this would benefit the U.S. economy is the increased sales of Nicorette and Trojan products.

An item that has become a major talking point of the package’s critics is the nearly $200 million that will go to Filipino WWII veterans. From what I’ve read in news articles, a lump sum of $15,000 will go to each vet that is a U.S. citizen and $9,000 to non-citizens.

The positive is that these deserving veterans are finally going to get something (even though it’s just a fraction of what was promised to them). The big negative that I see is that the issue for Filipino veteran’s benefits has now become a partisan politics talking point to argue the validity of a stimulus package rather than a standalone non-partisan issue. Journalists, pundits and politicians that want to highlight what they feel are the unnecessary aspects of the stimulus package are quick to point out that at least a third of the money allocated to these Filipino veterans will end up going to people in the Philippines, thus not really doing anything to stimulate the U.S. economy. They also argue that appropriating stimulus package money to Filipino veterans does nothing to help create jobs or increase consumer spending.

I am no economic expert but according to Kababayan L.A., I’m some kind of expert in something (not sure what, though). Being the expert that I am, I can assure all of you reading this that giving money to old Filipinos will definitely help the U.S. economy.